Hi
I seems that pre-surgery days put me in a mode of self-exploring. It will be the same surgery, just the other eye, so I know what to expect. The first eye has worked out to be as good as it can be, so I expect the other will be fine too. Still, there’s this mood, the effect of having been concerned for the loss of my eyesight.
In the intervening weeks I have realized that some of my eyesight difficulties have to do with bad lenses in my glasses, and my double vision (hypertrophia is the case in my case). Add these to the losses due to glaucoma and I feel like I am in a cloudy world. Loss due to glaucoma is not recoverable, but the lenses can be replaced, and there’s surgery for hypertrophia (one of the muscles that aims the eyeball is moved). So I look forward to better vision, although it’s probably going to take on the order of 6 months to sort it all out.
The wonderful winter we were having - cold, brisk and invigorating - has turned to fog. It’s the effect of warmish air on cold snow. Not a visage I need right now.
Part way through my recovery of the first surgery I stopped just being myself and stepped aside to witness myself. At that point I could see the eye surgery as a science experiment. I told the surgeon that it seemed that way to me, and he said “Yes, it is!”. I like this guy. For the coming surgery he went out of his way to make it so that I only have to stay in Wenatchee one night. Surgery is Monday afternoon, the one day checkup is first thing Tuesday Jan 18, 2022. My friend Jerry is taking me, and I arranged hotel rooms for us for Monday night Jan 17.
To witness oneself is to see the insubstantial nature of I or self. I’m currently reading Markings by Dag Hammarskjöld. (Pronounce the k like an h and you’ll be close to the Swedish.) It was his personal diary, published posthumously. He had remarkable insight into the nature of people and life, and much self-doubt and dark thinking. Who would have thought, given his public persona? He was Christian but some of it matches Zen and Buddhist philosophy., such as this contemplation on not-self:
This accidental
Meeting of possibilities
Calls itself I
In Buddhist philosophy, I and self are constructs of the mind, created expediently in response to phenomenological situations. I think I get it how this works in Christianity, where union with God is, I suppose, transcendent and selfless.
The music part: Covid pisses me off mostly because I can’t share my musical finds in actual performance. Just like Hammarskjöld I go to dark places. If the poet can look into the abyss, so can I; nothing wrong with that. So have a listen to “Fletcher Christian” by the British group the Mekons. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfAtfxFvge8 They were a punk group. but have mellowed some at least in this relatively unplugged arrangement. Lyrics below. It’s about how things not always going the way you wish they went. As my friend Mary told me, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.” [BTW I use God as an abstract idea, not something I believe in.]
Sometimes I feel like Fletcher Christian
Staring out across the sea
Torn apart by duty's shackles
The twisted tongues of loyalty
Well I sucked hard on every pleasure
Till my head began to spin
He'll choose between the whip and feather
And that is where his crimes begin
Sometimes I feel like Fletcher Christian
Yes, and I can feel the tattooist's needle
Those South Sea isles are cold and barren
But this civil war's been good to me
Well, we took drugs and tore our uniforms
And gave our captain up to the sea
Sometimes I feel like Fletcher Christian
For the mutiny, I'll shoot the big one
Through the sun and sea, my skin is peeling
But it don't make the pictures fade
Those shapes and symbols, I know their meaning
The shameless riches from another world
If I return, they're sure to hang me
So I guess, I'll have to stay
And if I should croak out in the darkness
No one will know I've gone away.
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